Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christanamio.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, December ninth, twenty twenty five. Speculation over Barnaby
Speaker 1: Joyce's political future is over, with the former Deputy PM
Speaker 1: announcing he's officially joined Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party. Joyce
Speaker 1: with the Nationals earlier this year, ending his two decade
Speaker 1: tenure with the party, Although he'll continue serving as the
Speaker 1: Member for New England in this term. He says he'll
Speaker 1: contest the next federal election as a One Nation Senate
Speaker 1: candidate in New South Wales. That story is live right
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au. After phenomenal
Speaker 1: success in reducing HIV transmissions, the former AIDS Council of
Speaker 1: New South Wales ACORN, pivoted to become a hugely influential
Speaker 1: lobby group with a new focus trans rite today the
Speaker 1: deep concerns of lesbian and LGBT groups about how ACON
Speaker 1: wields its power.
Speaker 2: It sounds like the plot of a science fiction horror movie.
Speaker 2: A weird mutant virus deadlier than the plague, suddenly appears
Speaker 2: on Earth. People start dying first by the score than
Speaker 2: by the hundreds.
Speaker 1: This is a nineteen eighty three segment of Channel nine's
Speaker 1: long running current affairs program Sixty Minutes. It's reporting, of course,
Speaker 1: on the AIDS epidemic, which reached Australian shores in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Doctors are baffled. All the resources of modern science can't
Speaker 2: help them find the cause. Let learn the cure of
Speaker 2: the epidemic. The public begins to panic. It sounds like
Speaker 2: science fiction, but it's not. The name of this new
Speaker 2: plague is AIDS aideas, and it's now begun to appear
Speaker 2: in Australia.
Speaker 1: By its peak in nineteen ninety four, more than five
Speaker 1: thousand people, mostly members of the gay community, are estimated
Speaker 1: to have died from complications relating to the virus. The
Speaker 1: AIDS Council of New South Wales was founded in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five to support men and their loved ones through
Speaker 1: the crisis, but Australia's world class response and advancements in
Speaker 1: medical treatments means AIDS is no longer a death sentence,
Speaker 1: nor is it considered a public health issue in Australia,
Speaker 1: and that means the AIDS Council of New South Wales
Speaker 1: had to pivot.
Speaker 3: They did great work, they saved a lot of lives,
Speaker 3: but as medications started to improve the life expectancy decrease
Speaker 3: the death rate from AIDS, the New South Wales Aids
Speaker 3: Council completely lost is mission.
Speaker 1: Stephen Rice is The Australian's New South Wales editor.
Speaker 3: And then when marriage equality came in, they lost even
Speaker 3: more of their mission and so they pivoted very strongly
Speaker 3: to focus on trans rights. And again some of their
Speaker 3: work is very laudable. They're going to workplaces and they
Speaker 3: try to make sure that trans people aren't bullied, that
Speaker 3: they're treated with the same respect that every other employee is.
Speaker 3: But then there comes a problem because the other part
Speaker 3: of the organization is really pushing a very extreme kind
Speaker 3: of trans ideology.
Speaker 1: This appears to have been by design.
Speaker 3: So a few years ago, when AKON was starting to
Speaker 3: lose its core purpose, some of its leaders got together
Speaker 3: and they came up with a master plan. Essentially, they
Speaker 3: poured a lot of money into it, they did a
Speaker 3: lot of lobbying and they came up with a plan
Speaker 3: to pivot, first of all, to really push this trans
Speaker 3: ideology so that trans women would be allowed to take
Speaker 3: part in women's sport, so that things like puberty blockers
Speaker 3: and hormone treatment would become a regular part of health treatment,
Speaker 3: so that trans women would be allowed into any kind
Speaker 3: of women's organization. So that was the, if you like,
Speaker 3: the ultimate mission. But the way to get there was
Speaker 3: to invent this thing called the Australian Workplace Equality Index.
Speaker 1: AKON runs a number of programs and services aimed at
Speaker 1: people in the LGBTQI plus community, including counseling, sexual health
Speaker 1: and HIV testing, and safety and inclusion initiatives. It also
Speaker 1: provides inclusivity training for organizations across Australia and ranks hundreds
Speaker 1: of government agencies and private companies according to how well
Speaker 1: they comply with acon's policies regarding transgender employees. Under the
Speaker 1: framework known as the Australian Workplace Equality Index. Points are
Speaker 1: awarded to companies who run awareness campaigns, make gender neutral
Speaker 1: bathrooms available, and provide leave to trans employees receiving what's
Speaker 1: now known as gender affirming healthcare, and every year they
Speaker 1: host the LGBTQ Plus Inclusion Awards, where top performers including
Speaker 1: major banks, law firms, universities and law enforcement agencies are recognized.
Speaker 1: For their efforts. The inner workings of the index are
Speaker 1: highly protected. ACON says making the details of its extensive
Speaker 1: questionnaire public would infringe on its intellectual property and make
Speaker 1: its business model unsustainable.
Speaker 3: The thought behind protecting vulnerable trans people is good, but
Speaker 3: really the idea is not just to make life better
Speaker 3: for trans employees. The idea is to change the way
Speaker 3: these organizations operate, so that health departments actually change the
Speaker 3: way that they offer medical treatment to people, that universities
Speaker 3: change the way they allow research to be done, and
Speaker 3: the way that a media organization like the ABC is
Speaker 3: allowed to talk about trans issues. And that's where the
Speaker 3: difficulty comes in.
Speaker 1: ACON counts the ABC among its member organizations. The National
Speaker 1: Broadcaster has achieved platinum status in acon's Workplace Equality Index.
Speaker 3: The ABC was a real prize for ACON. Not many
Speaker 3: of these other organizations have the power that the ABC
Speaker 3: does to reach millions of Australians. I've been able to
Speaker 3: get hold of a lot of internal ABC documents through
Speaker 3: Freedom of information request and what they show is that,
Speaker 3: as in all these organizations, ACON sets up a unit
Speaker 3: or a group of people inside an organization, a pride
Speaker 3: unit that enforces its requirements. The problem is that they're
Speaker 3: not just being inclusive in the workplace. And the problem
Speaker 3: isn't just that they're treating trans people in a fair
Speaker 3: way on screen, in their programming and in their news.
Speaker 3: It's that they are not allowing any kind of contrary
Speaker 3: information to be broadcast. They're not covering some of the
Speaker 3: most critical news events that are happening both in Australia
Speaker 3: and around the world, really significant events not reported, and
Speaker 3: journalists at the ABC are telling me that the reason
Speaker 3: for that is that if they did report those things,
Speaker 3: it would be seen as non inclusive, it would be
Speaker 3: seen as an attack on trans people, and some of
Speaker 3: the journalists there are reluctant to do stories that might
Speaker 3: be seen in some way to be transphobic, and that
Speaker 3: this is a real problem not just at the ABC,
Speaker 3: but I think generally in the community. People do fear
Speaker 3: being called transphobic. They can legitimately fear losing their jobs
Speaker 3: by saying something like that in the workplace, can losing friends.
Speaker 3: These emotions run very high on this topic, as we know,
Speaker 3: and the influence of an organization like Acon, which is
Speaker 3: now working in hundreds of you know, has been invited
Speaker 3: in to hundreds of businesses, dozens of public institutions, universities,
Speaker 3: it's in media organizations, and in particular, I think where
Speaker 3: the problem comes especially comes in is when it's in
Speaker 3: education departments and health departments, and so this influence is
Speaker 3: really widespread.
Speaker 1: When it comes to healthcare, ACON supports the argument that
Speaker 1: all trans people should have access to gender affirming medical care,
Speaker 1: including surgical interventions and puberty blockers for children. Through its evolution,
Speaker 1: it's become deeply embedded in health departments across the country.
Speaker 3: What you find again is that on a superficial level,
Speaker 3: ACON is simply making sure that trans employees working in
Speaker 3: New South Wealest Health for example, or in a federal
Speaker 3: health department are treated fairly, not bullied, and given the
Speaker 3: same kind of respect that every employee is given. But
Speaker 3: actually what you find when you drill down is that
Speaker 3: it's doing a lot more which can potentially be quite damaging.
Speaker 3: And that's to take away the independence and the impartiality
Speaker 3: of government departments and businesses when they're actually looking at
Speaker 3: the way that they should be operating. And in particular,
Speaker 3: a health department, for example, really needs to be basing
Speaker 3: its medical treatment on best practice and not on fulfilling
Speaker 3: the ideological agenda of a scoring outfit that's giving them
Speaker 3: points so that they can appear to the world to
Speaker 3: be inclusive of trans rites. And similar things are happening
Speaker 3: in education departments where trans ideology is starting to become
Speaker 3: incorporated into curriculum. It's happening in universities where if you
Speaker 3: try to get a research project up that doesn't meet
Speaker 3: the specifications of groups like a ON, you won't get
Speaker 3: it through. So it's really having quite a profound effect.
Speaker 1: And what do we know about how ACON is funded?
Speaker 1: Where does it get its money from.
Speaker 3: It charges each of these companies and government departments about
Speaker 3: something like twelve thousand dollars a year, which is obviously
Speaker 3: fairly insignificant for most of these institutions. It gets most
Speaker 3: of its money from the taxpayer, particularly from the New
Speaker 3: South Wales taxpayer, even though it's now a national lobby group,
Speaker 3: anywhere between seventeen and twenty million dollars a year, and
Speaker 3: it also gets big grants from For example, the Federal
Speaker 3: Health Department recently gave it seven million dollars for an
Speaker 3: awareness campaign for cervical cancer, which was pretty extraordinary. ACON
Speaker 3: had only asked for five hundred thousand dollars in the
Speaker 3: first place, without a tender, get awarded seven million dollars
Speaker 3: by the Health Department, which just happens to be a
Speaker 3: platinum member of Acon's diversity scheme. These kind of awards,
Speaker 3: they may be perfectly proper, but they really demand more
Speaker 3: scrutiny than they're getting.
Speaker 1: And have you been able to scrutinize that decision making
Speaker 1: process in that example or others?
Speaker 3: So? I have been able to get hold of some documents,
Speaker 3: such as the one that revealed this seven million dollar grant,
Speaker 3: but most of it is hidden. Most of it is
Speaker 3: hidden in layers of bureaucracy. And for example, I submitted
Speaker 3: a freedom of information request with the New South Wales
Speaker 3: Health Department for emails between their staff and ACON staff,
Speaker 3: and their Freedom of information department came back to me
Speaker 3: and said, sorry, we can't do that, there are too
Speaker 3: many and well, there can't be that many fourteen thousand
Speaker 3: emails between ACON staff and New South Wales Health Department staff.
Speaker 3: The level of interaction. That's the level of influence that
Speaker 3: ACON holds with some of these government agencies. And it's
Speaker 3: also information that we're not privy.
Speaker 1: To coming up the LGBTQI plus communities concerns about ACON.
Speaker 1: ACON has been met with resistance by other groups within
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ plus community. Who are they and what do
Speaker 1: they say about its policies?
Speaker 3: There are a large number now of gay and lesbian
Speaker 3: groups who are very much opposed to what AKON is doing.
Speaker 3: A lot of these groups, like ACON were originally set
Speaker 3: up for the benefit of gay men and lesbians and
Speaker 3: a lot of gay and lesbian people. It's not that
Speaker 3: they just resent suddenly being pushed to the side, it's
Speaker 3: the fact that their rights are now being infringed upon.
Speaker 1: People representing those groups gay and lesbian groups say that
Speaker 1: the actions of ACON or its policies are undermining the
Speaker 1: original purpose that the AIDS Council of New South Wales
Speaker 1: were set up for, which was to serve those communities
Speaker 1: in a really, really difficult time. What are some of
Speaker 1: those experiences that they've told you about.
Speaker 3: You know, you have the lesbian groups now that have
Speaker 3: been stopped from holding their own events because they don't
Speaker 3: want biological men allowed into their groups. Their same sex
Speaker 3: attracted people and they want other women in their groups
Speaker 3: and they're not sexually attracted to biological males who identify
Speaker 3: as women, but they're being forced into a situation now
Speaker 3: where they have to accept that or not hold those meetings.
Speaker 3: And lesbians are saying to me, look, once upon a time,
Speaker 3: these young women would just have become lesbians. Now they
Speaker 3: think they're trapped in the wrong body and they're having treatment,
Speaker 3: medical treatment, sometimes surgery to fix it, to fix something
Speaker 3: that doesn't really need fixing. Or if nature had been
Speaker 3: left to its course, would these young women just have
Speaker 3: become same sex attracted women are not gone down this
Speaker 3: very medicalized path.
Speaker 1: Stephen Rice is The Australian's new South Wales editor. You
Speaker 1: can read all his reporting on this issue right now
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au